Thursday, July 12, 2012

Default language setting for new Visual Studio projects

Are you a .Net developer that often has to work in multiple languages (such as VB.Net as well as C#)? If so, have you ever been frustrated by the lack of a "default language" setting in Visual Studio options?

As for me, personally, I am one of those developers. While most of the time I work with C#, there are occasions when I have to work with VB.Net. However, Visual Studio has never had a "default language" setting that I can configure so that all of my new projects will by default use Visual C#! Even though it seems like a minor thing, it is a bit frustrating (and at least a little time consuming) to have to double check to make sure that the projects I am creating are in the right .Net language.

Now, sure, there are some naysayers that state "You can just search for the template that you need!" Well, yes, I CAN do that, but that takes far more keystrokes or mouse clicks than simply having it right there when you open the New Project dialog. Sometimes, I also want to simply browse the list of available projects that are installed since these can change with every .Net Framework release as well as through various installed 3rd party extensions and templates.

Therefore, it would just be more convenient for me to "set it and forget it". With just that little change, I can shave several seconds off of my "think time" and use those accumulated seconds towards focusing on my development!

If you believe this would be a useful setting to have, please vote for this Visual Studio User Voice item here: